​US facing intelligence ‘black hole’ over Ukraine events

Pro-Russian activists stand in front of a barricade outside the regional state administration building in Donetsk, eastern Ukraine, on April 12, 2014 (AFP Photo / Max Vetrov) / AFP

The United States is facing an intelligence ‘black hole’ over what is happening in Ukraine in the last few month, and not feeling able to judge the events clearly resort to shrill response and rhetoric, Oxford University historian Mark Almond told RT.

RT:People in Slavyansk are bracing for a
larger-scale offensive – Kiev has pledged a harsh crackdown ...
just how violent could it get?

Mark Almond: Well, it could get very violent.
But I think part of what is a little bit surprising is that the
Ministry of Interior talks about sending in special forces,
presumably, highly trained commandos. Yet what we seem to be
seeing is a rather ramshackle operation on the edge of Slavyansk,
by the people, who might be called paramilitary militias.
Certainly, people who don’t seem to have the high level of
training or commitment that we would expect from somebody who
wanted to move in quickly and decisively to crush what they see
as a rebellion.

So, the danger is at one level that we are going to see sporadic
fighting rather than some decisive action. And that might seem to
less worrying. But on the other hand, it does suggest that you
could have a drip of casualties through the night and, of course,
the radicalization, which we see going on both in south-eastern
Ukraine, but also in other places where Ukrainian nationalists
are being aroused by arguments that their country is about to be
dissected.

RT:Anti-government activists say they're
being attacked by fighters from the Right Sector – how much of
this is true?

MA: Well, I think we’ve certainly heard the
rhetoric from the Right Sector. But also after all, the new
government in Kiev announced setting up a National Guard
precisely in order to incorporate the paramilitary fighters of
the Right Sector into something that would look more like a state
organization.

And, given the failure of the local police in the south-east of
Ukraine to assert the authority of the new regime in Kiev, they
really do need – if you like – committed activists. And those are
more likely to come, actually, from outside the old security
forces. We’ve seen, for instance, the dismissal of large numbers
– tens of thousands – of policemen in Berkut members for
supporting or maintaining the government stance under Yanukovich.
Those people, I suspect are providing at least some of the
activists in the south-east.

The new regime in Kiev is rather short of trained and competent
personnel. And at the same time it has an incentive to move the
radical right-wing militias out of Kiev, sending them somewhere,
where – if they’re successful the new government can get the
credit, if they get a bloody nose from confrontation with the
people in south-east Ukraine it will, in fact, weaken them
vis-à-vis the other side of the new regime, which came to power
on the back – if you like – of that violence in February, but
isn’t entirely comfortable with it.

RT:From the beginning of the popular
uprising in the east people there have been saying they fear the
neo-Nazis – and Kiev and Western states have been saying there is
no threat from extremists. Will they be able to ignore these
concerns now?

MA: If even a week ago the new regime in Kiev
had said: ‘Why don’t we hold a referendum simultaneously with the
presidential election that’s scheduled for May 21. Why don’t we
offer a pallet of reforms.’ Maybe they could’ve calmed the fears.

But what they’ve tended to say: ‘We’re listening to you, but
anybody, who you chose as your spokesman is a Russian agent, an
agent of foreign power, an imperialist threat.’ So, there isn’t
really any dialogue.

And we saw that on Friday when Yatsenyuk, the interim prime
minister, came to Donetsk. He basically spoke to a haul of his
own supporters and local oligarchs, rather than trying to address
the local people – at least, those people, who are demonstrating
against his government. And I think this is the great problem.
It’s a dialogue of the deaf, at best.

RT:How much attention will these events get
in the Western media?

MA: Well, what is, I think, quite striking is
that there are several journalists from Western media outlets in
Slavyansk and they all contradict the official line from Kiev.
They say there isn’t an actual operation in town. There’s some
kind of a disturbance; there’s been some kind of shooting on the
edge of the town. But nothing that one could call a serious
military or commando operation.

And even journalists, who in the past have been rather
sympathetic to their point of view, having to say that they don’t
find information they’re getting from the official sources in
Kiev matching what they are themselves seeing in Slavyansk and
other parts of south-east Ukraine.

RT:John Kerry has – in a phone conversation
with Foreign Minister Lavrov – once again pointed the finger at
Russia. How long is this blame game likely to go on?

MA: Well, I think it’s quite blame game. One
problem for the Americans is that they’re really boxing in the
dark. They didn’t expect what would happen in Crimea to happen.
They don’t really know what’s happening in south-east Ukraine.
They don’t really know what’s happening in Russia itself.

In a sense, they’re now steering up a great deal of anxiety
partly is a sense to cover themselves from some worst case
scenario, from that point of view. I think the danger from the
point of view of NATO and the Americans is really… They seem to
be facing a kind of intelligence ‘black hole’ for the last few
months over Ukraine and over what’s happening there. And I think
this is really something that bewildering them. Leading to more
shrill response because they don’t really feel able to judge the
events clearly and to know what’s going to happen next.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.